Saturday, February 07, 2009

There's some priest who might become a bishop -- his name is Richard Williamson, and he's British-born but lives in Argentina -- but they're not going to make him a bishop till he quits denying that the Holocaust happened.

A couple things come immediately to mind. Are we so short of bishops that we need to dangle a carrot in front of this guy's face? If, at his age -- he looks at least 60-65 -- he doesn't know the basic facts of World War II and the Nazis, does it really matter what else he has to say on the subject? Just move on to the next candidate and who cares what he believes? Another thing, how did he avoid hearing the evidence of the Holocaust all these years?

I was seeing film of it in high school, I seem to remember. And I took a course on the subject in college, having to read several books. These people didn't just vanish from the face of the earth in some benign way. They were rounded up, taken by train, held against their will, and murdered in terrible ways by the Nazis.

It makes you wonder. But maybe it's just like other conspiracy theories. Someone is always going to believe or not believe something, based on nothing. In some of this relatively recent stuff, though, if people don't believe what happened either in their lifetime or just a few years before it, what is history on down the years going to say? There's no way such horrible experiences should be forgotten on the earth.

Williamson says he will change his mind if he's satisfied by the evidence, but says, it "will take time."